>> ^Crosswords:

>> ^Hybrid:
Yes, the DLC for skins, hats, taunt animations etc. are waaay overpriced. Not a good move by Valve, surely they make enough money nowadays to not have to rip people off!?

I could care less about purely cosmetic DLC, but the pricing point on this crap has always confused me. Most people seem to find it a huge rip-off. I can't help but imagine it'd be financially more successful if it were priced a lot lower. Or maybe I underestimate the number of people that'll blow money on something a gnat's nuts away from being completely useless.

I remember reading (or watching. I can't remember if was a video or an article) that their highest grossing item in the Team Fortress 2 store is the highest priced item in it. But the second highest grossing item is the lowest priced item in the store.

>> ^Hybrid:

Yes, the DLC for skins, hats, taunt animations etc. are waaay overpriced. Not a good move by Valve, surely they make enough money nowadays to not have to rip people off!?


I could care less about purely cosmetic DLC, but the pricing point on this crap has always confused me. Most people seem to find it a huge rip-off. I can't help but imagine it'd be financially more successful if it were priced a lot lower. Or maybe I underestimate the number of people that'll blow money on something a gnat's nuts away from being completely useless.

Just finished the single player. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:
- Some really head scratching puzzles.
- Very humorous, thanks to Merchant and Simmons. The last game that I played that was this funny was a Lucasarts adventure title more than 15 years ago.
- Some really nice additions to the mechanics of the game. I'm surprised that the floating energy spheres didn't make an appearance, as well as some of the other older mechanics, but then again, that let us focus on the new stuff to play with so fair enough.
-decent enough back story

Cons:
- the whole Potato game promotion/tie-in for all the reasons everyone's already complained about
- sad to see Valve is going the DLC route. On one hand I'm glad it's just cosmetic stuff and doesn't enhance the gameplay; on the other, what does this spell for future games like HL3 and L4D3? Fucking horse armor.
- I didn't care for the ending as much, but in keeping with making this thread spoiler-free, I won't go into it here. Maybe later, after everyone's gotten through it.
- by the end of the game, I was really surprised that Valve only did x amount of stuff with the new gameplay mechanics. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with. However, I haven't heard whether or not an SDK will be released. I fear that Valve may follow suit with all the game companies and start holding back tools, just to nickel and dime with DLC. I certainly hope not.

If you bet on every horse in a race, you become poor very quickly.

We've unwillingly tried His Earness's way for two years, with spending that was already out-of-control before he even got elected by the State-Run media.

That spending hasn't worked, just like it didn't work in the 1940s. Now His Earness & Friends are going to attempt to raise taxes (SURPRISE!).

Jesus Fking Christ, libs, how many times do you have to jump of the same cliff wearing cardboard wings before you realize the left's schemes don't fly?

I shouldn't be giving you this sage advice, but if His Earness wants to win in 2012, he should let the Republicans enact their plan, if only to disassociate his own antics from the failconomy.

The Republican Plan is cosmetic and doesn't go far enough, or rather, it won't go far enough to save the Republic.

>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^dannym3141:
@sgundamx I still think my comment stands - article or no article. Unless you can categorically state that there was no abuse before advertisements, there's no evidence for the sentiment that she's insinuating.
There's so many people in this thread arguing with other people, often times even two people in agreement are having some sort of tiff. I'll tell you why;
Firstly, males are less likely to notice sexism towards females because it doesn't affect them, doesn't even happen when they're around perhaps.
Secondly, women are more likely to notice sexism towards females because it only happens to them or around them, and women who are aware of sexism (or perhaps anti sexism campaigners) are more likely to see false positives, times when there was no sexism, just plain ignorance or rudeness, and it's chalked down to sexism.
Thirdly, everyone is different - some guys think they wouldn't be bothered if they were a girl and all they saw were skinny girls, and then you'll get girls saying "how can you say that? oh yes you would!" and then they'll get a reply saying "how can you say i would? oh no i wouldn't!" and so on.
But let's at least be fair about the matter. People saying "how would you feel if ALL YOU SAW was toned and fit handsome guys?" - this is not the situation. If that were the case, all your friends and relatives and everyone you ever saw or knew about would have to be skinny, and you were the only one that wasn't. In actual fact, advertisements display something utterly bullshit but then you go out into the street and see a load of perfectly average people. I'm not saying whether you should or should not get offended, but at least make the argument fair - it is advertisements and media, not everything

Sorry, what?
I don't see anywhere in my comment or the video where people are insinuating that there was no "abuse" (I'm not sure what you mean by the use of this word) before advertisements. I stated--in several posts--that the advertisements are both a cause (maintaining the status quo) and an effect of a societal norm that makes it okay to objectify women. And both I and the presenter in the video pointed out that objectifying a person is one of the first steps taken when someone wishes to commit violence against another person. Therefore, these ads are basically fostering a social atmosphere where it is okay to dehumanize women, to value them only for their appearance, and that seems extremely dangerous to me.
The objectification of women is a problem that extends way beyond just advertising--it pervades all of our mass media: movies, tv, and music. And why does it pervade our mass media? Because it works. Because we've accepted it as normal. It's no fluke that the cosmetics industry is a $1.9 billion dollar industry with around 3% growth a year and fantastic profits or that the diet industry rakes in $55 billion dollars a year (as of 2006) and is still growing. It's not a coincidence that rates of eating disorders in adolescents are rising. It's not solely the ads that are responsible for this, but the message--that gets reinforced constantly by the media and often by our own peers--that our worth as a human being is directly related to how well we fit the images we are bombarded with daily. Like she said in the video, we may walk out the door and see that what is being presented is impossible to obtain but that doesn't seem to stop us for striving for it anyway as the statistics I presented above show.


In the same way - sorry, what?

I originally stated that insinuating that abuse came from adverts objectifying women was a poor argument, and then when you replied saying abuse comes from objectification, i replied saying that it wasn't fair to say adverts cause abuse. I haven't read your massive post because the snippets i skimmed through didn't even seem to relate to what i was saying.

Nice talking with you, but i don't think we're having the same conversation.

>> ^dannym3141:

@sgundamx I still think my comment stands - article or no article. Unless you can categorically state that there was no abuse before advertisements, there's no evidence for the sentiment that she's insinuating.
There's so many people in this thread arguing with other people, often times even two people in agreement are having some sort of tiff. I'll tell you why;
Firstly, males are less likely to notice sexism towards females because it doesn't affect them, doesn't even happen when they're around perhaps.
Secondly, women are more likely to notice sexism towards females because it only happens to them or around them, and women who are aware of sexism (or perhaps anti sexism campaigners) are more likely to see false positives, times when there was no sexism, just plain ignorance or rudeness, and it's chalked down to sexism.
Thirdly, everyone is different - some guys think they wouldn't be bothered if they were a girl and all they saw were skinny girls, and then you'll get girls saying "how can you say that? oh yes you would!" and then they'll get a reply saying "how can you say i would? oh no i wouldn't!" and so on.
But let's at least be fair about the matter. People saying "how would you feel if ALL YOU SAW was toned and fit handsome guys?" - this is not the situation. If that were the case, all your friends and relatives and everyone you ever saw or knew about would have to be skinny, and you were the only one that wasn't. In actual fact, advertisements display something utterly bullshit but then you go out into the street and see a load of perfectly average people. I'm not saying whether you should or should not get offended, but at least make the argument fair - it is advertisements and media, not everything


Sorry, what?

I don't see anywhere in my comment or the video where people are insinuating that there was no "abuse" (I'm not sure what you mean by the use of this word) before advertisements. I stated--in several posts--that the advertisements are both a cause (maintaining the status quo) and an effect of a societal norm that makes it okay to objectify women. And both I and the presenter in the video pointed out that objectifying a person is one of the first steps taken when someone wishes to commit violence against another person. Therefore, these ads are basically fostering a social atmosphere where it is okay to dehumanize women, to value them only for their appearance, and that seems extremely dangerous to me.

The objectification of women is a problem that extends way beyond just advertising--it pervades all of our mass media: movies, tv, and music. And why does it pervade our mass media? Because it works. Because we've accepted it as normal. It's no fluke that the cosmetics industry is a $1.9 billion dollar industry with around 3% growth a year and fantastic profits or that the diet industry rakes in $55 billion dollars a year (as of 2006) and is still growing. It's not a coincidence that rates of eating disorders in adolescents are rising. It's not solely the ads that are responsible for this, but the message--that gets reinforced constantly by the media and often by our own peers--that our worth as a human being is directly related to how well we fit the images we are bombarded with daily. Like she said in the video, we may walk out the door and see that what is being presented is impossible to obtain but that doesn't seem to stop us for striving for it anyway as the statistics I presented above show.

Biography
Dr. Gerald Curatola graduated from Colgate University in 1979 and received his dental education from New York University College of Dentistry. After graduating in 1983, Dr. Curatola returned to join the teaching faculty in both the Division of Prosthodontic Science and Post-Graduate Department of Continuing Education from 1984-1995. Dr. Curatola also served on the hospital staffs of both New York University and Cabrini Medical Centers in New York City. As a researcher in dental materials and national lecturing clinician in the field of Restorative and Cosmetic Dentistry, Dr. Curatola has worked with many dental manufacturers including the Den-Mat, Kerr, Siemens, Brasseler, Colgate, and Oral-B Companies.

In a joint effort with the Jamaican Government and the Peace Corps, Dr. Curatola performed voluntary dentistry on the island of Jamaica, West Indies in 1982. He continued to volunteer his services to the Bowery Mission in New York City from 1985-1995. Since 1996, Dr. Curatola currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Pediatric Dental Fund of the Hamptons (PDF) whose mission is to provide voluntary dental services to indigent children on the East End of Long Island.

Dr. Curatola has maintained private dental practices in both Manhattan and East Hampton. In 1986, he established the Curatola Dental Group, a restorative and cosmetic dental practice in New York City. After settling his permanent residence in East Hampton, he founded East Hampton Dental Associates, a multi-specialty practice in 1999. Dr. Curatola continues to consult for several major dental corporations in the United States and Europe and lectures internationally on the techniques and benefits of new treatment modalities especially natural, therapeutic approaches to building dental health. He is Cofounder and Chairman of C.S.Bioscience, Inc., a dental biotech company which has developed and patented a nutritional- homeopathic oral care formula (NuPath TM Complexes).

Dr. Curatola has authored numerous articles on dentistry and health including a recent chapter on dental health for the book entitled, "Live Long, Look Young" by Lisa Trivell. Dr. Curatola is currently writing a book entitled "Smile for a Lifetime- An Integrative Look at the Role Your Dental Health Plays in Wellness and Longevity."

http://www.easthamptondental.com/curatola.htm

Just look at actors and actresses that are on most television shows. They have people who in most locations in their viewing areas would be considered much more attractive than any of their viewing audience. So much so that when they have to portray someone as someone who was picked on due to their looks......they also tend to be maybe one notch below these actors and actresses, but still way beyond the typical audience.

It's just what people expect to see and probably want to see. If they stuck a bunch of normal "ugly" people on television, without the make up, lighting, hair, etc.....unless it's some sort of comedy to make fun of the normal state of shows...is probably not going to make it.

As for how they portray men, they make special efforts for men to make sure the short but "hero" guys are filmed in ways where they appear as tall as any other man on the show. Often by having the "hero" stand on a curb or the other guy stand in a low spot. You'll especially notice this when they have basketball players making appearances on movies and such, they would probably be lucky if the typical male reached their shoulders in height but often they are face to face.

I am sure if you looked for heroes/heroines and such you'd notice there's something specific Hollywood does with lighting, make-up and music to ingrain into our minds when the hero is on screen versus a villain on screen. Often using males with larger noses, heavier brows, scars, etc...whether natural or cosmetic to portray villains. And never forget the villain "cackling" laughter for both genders.

I think it's a little more evident in women because both men and women pay attention to the women on screen. Men mostly out of attraction, and women out of their "catty" natures. You can see catty-ness in person when you see women who work in service places like a bank, and a woman comes in dressed provocatively...you'll see the women at the bank whisper to each other and often be rather rude. You might see similar behavior in them when a man comes in, but they are pleasant even flirty toward the man, not rude. You might get rude behavior if a homeless guy comes in. Women are also really rude to any woman they feel use their good looks to get anything. IE if a woman is a dancer/stripper/porn/model/nude model/trophy wife/etc. They are looked down upon by all women but women who've done something similar in the past or were on the verge of doing something like in the past (IE they could, but didnt..not they wanted to but no one would have them). You'll see something similar to this in males when it comes to sports. Especially when it comes to how much the sports stars earn or if they screw up a play.

I am not saying it's not a real issue when they tamper with bodies via photoshop and what not, but I also think it's got a lot of jealousy mixed in as well.

Ahh!>> ^kronosposeidon:

I know she's a plastic surgery disaster, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially on such a sensitive area (though she may have lost a lot of sensation with all the silicone jammed into her tits).

I know she's a plastic surgery disaster, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially on such a sensitive area (though she may have lost a lot of sensation from all the silicone jammed into her tits).

Funny, I was just reading the Gorgias Socratic Dialogue yesterday. This is just chopped full of rhetoric, "These are the times we live in", which is of course, meaningless...when has their not been violence and injustice in the world, but it sure sounds nice.

Rhetoric is to politics what pastry baking is to medicine, and what cosmetics are to gymnastics. -Socrates

Tummy Tuck Cost
Plastic Surgery
cosmetic surgery
breast augmentation

>> ^dannym3141:

I think i was trying to do a sendup of an armchair critic attacking something she/he didn't really understand properly. I don't REALLY care about how you spell (why should i when you don't?). I think it's a good analogy for this guy's game. You put in as much effort as you're willing to in the time you've got. You sacrifice your spelling in order to get a point across in a short amount of time - just as this guy has to sacrifice certain gameplay elements to complete his vision in 48 hours. It's as much to do with sacrifice/time management as it is to do with "how the game plays".
You know that even a game as cosmetically simple as Braid doesn't get whipped up in 2 days by one person. It boggles my mind to think how he managed to do what he did in such a short spell of time. I dare say the game could have been improved with some 3d elements, correct lighting and shading, JRPG style zero-g hair waving and other such modern miracles, but it'd take a team of 100 people half a year to do something on that scale.
20 of that team would be an art department, another 20 motion capture, another 20 probably texture/modelling designers, and the remaining 40 would be programmers to bring it all together. And they'd all be working more or less at the same time - think of the man hours! If anyone even has the skill set to DO a final fantasy game on their own, it'd probably take them a decade or two.
I would love to see some better games done from the ground up in 24 hour periods. However that wouldn't make what this guy made any less of an achievement. I think people are taking issue with just that - it's not whether you think the game is worth playing in the modern game market, it's whether you think it was an impressive feat or not!
That's about the skinny for you, hope i've cleared it up.
thanks for that , but my piont is 100% valid and you obvously understood what i wrote so evan though the spelling was shit and the punctuatoin bad it still performed its function.
I can do manny things in 48 hours , if im going to publish it on the internet im going to take the good and the bad criticisum.
Is the rule that is has to take 48 hours of work before you allow bad criticism to go unnoticed, or was that just an accident? Feel free to criticise my comprehension of your comments without consequence - it nearly took me 48 hours.


I am a games developer , i know how long and how much time it takes to make games. when saying the art and charactor movment is bad that is within the context of spending 48 hours on a game.

having a nice art asthetic + solid charactor movment are not things that necaccerly would be impacted by a 48 hour development time.

you can work with the time frame you have and do art around that , for example if this guy had gone for realy realy LOfi graphics i think it would have been less work and looked far better.

as for player movment in flash there are plenty of scripts and methadoligies for knocking out Mario typ charactor movment within 30min.

allso i was very clear thst "the mechanic of shooting the tiny dudes is good though" and thats realy the core aspect of the game , my piont was that its a shame that the art and basic charactor movment were a total detrement to something that could have been alllot better with minimal effort and some slight changes.

I think i was trying to do a sendup of an armchair critic attacking something she/he didn't really understand properly. I don't REALLY care about how you spell (why should i when you don't?). I think it's a good analogy for this guy's game. You put in as much effort as you're willing to in the time you've got. You sacrifice your spelling in order to get a point across in a short amount of time - just as this guy has to sacrifice certain gameplay elements to complete his vision in 48 hours. It's as much to do with sacrifice/time management as it is to do with "how the game plays".

You know that even a game as cosmetically simple as Braid doesn't get whipped up in 2 days by one person. It boggles my mind to think how he managed to do what he did in such a short spell of time. I dare say the game could have been improved with some 3d elements, correct lighting and shading, JRPG style zero-g hair waving and other such modern miracles, but it'd take a team of 100 people half a year to do something on that scale.

20 of that team would be an art department, another 20 motion capture, another 20 probably texture/modelling designers, and the remaining 40 would be programmers to bring it all together. And they'd all be working more or less at the same time - think of the man hours! If anyone even has the skill set to DO a final fantasy game on their own, it'd probably take them a decade or two.

I would love to see some better games done from the ground up in 24 hour periods. However that wouldn't make what this guy made any less of an achievement. I think people are taking issue with just that - it's not whether you think the game is worth playing in the modern game market, it's whether you think it was an impressive feat or not!

That's about the skinny for you, hope i've cleared it up.

thanks for that , but my piont is 100% valid and you obvously understood what i wrote so evan though the spelling was shit and the punctuatoin bad it still performed its function.

I can do manny things in 48 hours , if im going to publish it on the internet im going to take the good and the bad criticisum.

Is the rule that is has to take 48 hours of work before you allow bad criticism to go unnoticed, or was that just an accident? Feel free to criticise my comprehension of your comments without consequence - it nearly took me 48 hours.

>> ^laura:

He is saying "propanediol" & propylene glycol...
A quick wiki search tells me that propanediol can be formed by "Conversion from glycerol (a by-product of biodiesel production) using Clostridium diolis bacteria."
...so could bacteria be breaking down components of the oil into propanediol/propylene glycol? ...not necessarily that it had to have come from the Corexit? Just wondering....


"In response to public pressure, the EPA and Nalco released the list of the six ingredients in Corexit 9500, revealing constituents including sorbitan, butanedioic acid, and petroleum distillates.[3] Corexit EC9500A is mainly comprised of hydrotreated light petroleum distillates, propylene glycol and a proprietary organic sulfonate.[16] Environmentalists also pressured Nalco to reveal to the public what concentrations of each chemical are in the product; Nalco considers that information to be a trade secret, but has shared it with the EPA.[17] Propylene glycol is a chemical commonly used as a solvent or moisturizer in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, and is of relatively low toxicity. An organic sulfonate (or organic sulfonic acid salt) is a synthetic chemical detergent, that acts as a surfactant to emulsify oil and allow its dispersion into water. The identity of the sulfonate used in both forms of Corexit was disclosed to the EPA in June 2010, as dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate.[18]" wiki